Man convicted in student's slaying back in jail

LAS CRUCES – A man who was convicted in the 2011 killing of an 18-year-old Oñate High School student is back behind bars after violating the terms of his parole, jail records show.

Andrew Garcia Martinez, 31, was booked into the Doña Ana County Detention Center last week after he was arrested on parole violations. A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections said Tuesday that Martinez had violated parole on June 12.

The corrections spokeswoman, Ashley Espinoza, said Martinez had tested positive for methamphetamines, failed to keep his GPS monitoring system fully charged, and had associated with individuals detrimental to his parole.

In April 2013, Martinez pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and other charges in the beating death of 18-year-old Jerry Zamarripa two years earlier, court records show.

Martinez, then 24, was arrested in February 2011 after he was suspected of attacking Zamarripa with a golf club at a house party in Doña Ana County, according to Sun-News archives. At the time of the arrest, officials said Martinez had struck Zamarripa twice in the head and once in the body. An 18-year-old man, Anthony Sena, also was stabbed during the incident, the Sun-News reported.

Zamarripa, who had been declared brain dead, died several days after the attack at an El Paso hospital.

After pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and other charges, Martinez was sentenced to six years in prison and two years of parole, court records show. But he was given pre-sentence credit of two years and 54 days for the time he was jailed on the charges.

Martinez began serving his prison term in May 2013, Espinoza said. He then began serving parole in November 2016. Court records do not show any upcoming hearings in Martinez's case.

After the attack in February 2011, four men were charged with murder after officials said they fired at least 10 gunshots at a mobile home in Mesilla Park, believing they were targeting Zamarripa’s attackers, according to Sun-New archives.

But the men shot and killed Julian Pena Sr., a 57-year-old Vietnam War veteran who was watching TV as he waited for dinner, the Sun-News reported.